Horse Skills and Improving the Equine Partnership

 Nothing is too “basic.”

To demonstrate how repetitive interactions or behaviors can lead to mindlessness, I’ll sometimes ask students if they’ve ever been showering and suddenly stopped, and thought to themselves, “Did I already wash my hair?” People will chuckle at the “guilt” of realizing they might have had a similar experience...

What horse folks tend to overlook is how many rote patterns occur in the everyday “mundane” equine interactions. The familiarity leads to muscle memory responses without mental presence, in either the human or the horse.

Think back to when you were in school; did you ever have a teacher who taught every class exactly the same? Roll call, how the lesson started, the teaching style, maybe how they greeted the class, or the weekly teaching format- i.e., every Friday a pop quiz, etc. If you didn’t enjoy the teacher or like the subject matter, or even if you did, think back to how often you might have physically been in the class, “participating,” but mentally “elsewhere.”

The same type of physical interaction without mental consideration frequently happens as people approach (from outside the corral, pasture, or stall) to how they catch, halter, lead, groom, tack, mount, turnout, feed, bathe, flyspray, blanket, etc., the horse.

If I ask a student to “teach me” how they do something- catch the horse, post the trot, mount up, the human often “jumps” around in their description, without having much detail, and often describes the interaction with assumptions- in both how the horse will be, and their own behavior- which reflects their lack of awareness of all the small aspects/communication/feedback that occurs in every interaction that creates the “final” outcome.

Without having awareness of how, when, what, and why someone does something, they cannot have real-time adaptability. The rigidity creates anticipation in the horse, and the human “falls into” patterns of familiarity, whether for “ease,” “convenience,” or “time efficiency,” without realizing how often they are reinforcing the horse's future unwanted responses, by unintentionally ignoring his current feedback.

Take a few minutes and think about your equine interactions... is there something you “always” do? Then ask yourself why? Consider the specificity and quality of your communication during said task. Experiment with making a small change from how/when/where you usually do the task. Observe what happens in your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and how the horse responds to the change.

The feedback from the horse will reflect the holes in the communication, anticipation, defensiveness, etc.

This isn’t about seeking task compliance (though that is what most horse training approaches strive for) but rather recognizing the value of adaptability- in the human and horse. Unfortunately, it isn’t until the day they “need” their horse to be willing and reasonable during the unfamiliar, and instead get a “fire-breathing dragon,” or feel like they’re flying a 1,000lb kite on the end of the leadrope, showing how deeply ingrained patterned interactions lead to a dysfunctionality when change occurs.

Evolving the mindset to perceive everyday interactions as “training opportunities”- NOT for compliance, but for refining adaptability- can help you change up your presentation and communication, to assess, address, and help the horse learn how to think, search, and try. These three aspects are crucial in developing the horse’s education, allowing him to be mentally available and physically adaptable, regardless of the circumstances.